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chickenshit

adj

Etymology

From chicken + shit.

  1. derived from *skeyd-✻ — “to split, divide, separate”
  2. inherited from *skitiz✻
  3. inherited from *skiti✻
  4. inherited from *sċite✻ — “dung”
  5. inherited from schit
  6. compounded as chickenshit — “chicken + shit”

Definitions

  1. Petty

    Petty; contemptibly unimportant. (Compare bullshit.)

  2. Cowardly.

    • How chickenshit of that girl to just stand there and do nothing.
    • "How chickenshit do you have to be to go after an old man in a wheelchair?"

  3. A petty and contemptible thing or things.

    • Don't waste your time on that chickenshit.
    • I went to see Lyndon Johnson, and I was telling him I wanted to run for Senate. And he said, "The difference between the Senate and the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit." Johnson was amazing.
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. A coward.

      • I told him I wasn't having his insults, and he just backed right down. What a chickenshit.

    2. A low-ranking officer who lords over and needlessly makes life miserable for his…

      A low-ranking officer who lords over and needlessly makes life miserable for his underlings; a petty, abusive martinet.

      • That chickenshit drove his men nearly to mutiny.

    3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically

      Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chicken, shit: chicken manure.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for chickenshit. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA